Destination – Canada – followthethings.com

“Tangled Routes: Women, Work And Globalization On The Tomato Trail“
An academic book written by Deborah Barndt published by Rowman & Littlefield
2007 second edition Google Books preview embedded above. Search online to buy a copy here.

In 1994, preparing to do some undergraduate teaching, Environmental Studies professor Deborah Barndt finds a popular educational tool called A whirlwind tour of economic integration with your guide, Tomasita the tomato. She thinks this fictional tomato is the perfect etrée for her students’ understanding of cross-border trade – in this case from Mexico to Canada – and the often confusing complexities of globalisation – including messy relations between corporate power, genetically modified seeds, pesticides, stolen indigenous land, exploited peasant labour and environmental racism. What follows is a 5 year feminist participatory research project – called the Tomasita Project – which connects the lives of tomato growers, truckers, checkout workers and other supply chain workers living and working in Mexico and Canada. What she discovers and tries to convey is the clash between a ‘globalisation from above’ – the uniform, genetically-engineered, neoliberal, NAFTA-friendly tomato trade – and ‘globalisation from below’ – grass roots social justice projects working across borders and producing alternative foods. As Tomasita explained when Barndt first saw her story, the tomato is an iconic crop in the Americas. A brilliant one to follow, loading with meanings. It was native to South America, was first domesticated in Mexico, is central to the diets in Mexico, the USA and Canada, can be grown (at least seasonally) in all three countries, and was ‘one of the winners for Mexico in the NAFTA reshuffle’ (Barndt 2002a, p.82). What readers value the most is her book’s ‘feminist act’ that makes visible women workers in the global food system, and the way that it brings feminist theories into understandings of international trade. We researched this book early in its life (in 2011) and are keen to return to it to flesh out this page one day. This is an early, innovative, important and inspiring example of ‘follow the thing’ scholar-activism.

Page reference: Robert Conor Burke (2024) Tangled Routes: Women, Work And Globalization On The Tomato Trail. followthethings.com/tangled-routes-women-work-and-globalization-on-the-tomato-trail.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 20 minutes.

Posted on October 23, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Cicih Sukaesih’s North America Nike Tour

followthethings.com
Sport & Fitness | Fashion

CHANGE CORPORATE BEHAVIOUR

IMPROVE PAY & CONDITIONS

FIND THE UNIONS

FIND A CHARACTER

HUMANISE THINGS

WORKERS TAKE THE MIC!

ADD TO THE MIX

PUT YOUR BODIES IN THE WAY

BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

CULTIVATE RELATIONSHIPS

“Cicih Sukaesih’s North America Nike tour“
A speaker tour of North America by sacked Indonesia Nike factory worker Cicih Sukaesih, sponsored by Global Exchange, Working Group on Nike, Press 4 Change, Campaign for Labor Rights, Canadian Auto Workers, Operation PUSH, Jobs for Justice, Amnesty International, Frontlash (a branch of the AFL-CIO) and the Alberta Federation of Labour.
Newspaper report reproduced above. Search for a 2017 BBC interview with Cicih Sukaesih about this tour here.

Indonesian Nike factory worker Cicih Sukaesih is sacked for organising a successful strike action for minimum wages and better conditions. So North American anti-sweatshop organisations recruit her to front a multi-city tour with stops in New York City. Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto … She wants Nike CEO Phil Knight and basketball star Michael Jordan to explain the price of the shoes she has made, their astronomical pay and her colleagues’ extraordinarily bad pay and conditions. She visits Nike’s HQ, leads protests at its Nike Town stores, describes the working conditions she has experienced, urges supporters to write to Jordan to persuade him to use his celebrity power to help factory workers and urges Nike to reinstate her and her sacked colleagues. She sometimes tries on a pair of Nike shoes in store. Wearing them makes her feel distinguished. But their price tag would eat up two or three months of her salary. Where does all that money go? Her removal from a store by Nike security staff after trying on the Nike shoes she makes is quite a spectacle. A perfect scene for media coverage that can make Nike’s sweatshop problem a public concern. We love this example of trade justice activism. Conventionally it’s a Western consumer who travels to the Global South to meet their makers. Sukaesih goes in the opposite direction. She’s looking to connect with others in the worlds of retail and consumption who care about trade justice, to act together in solidarity. She’s doing this by working with campaigning NGOs and public relations, media-savvy activists, working together on a new kind of trade justice activism. But what should the protestors who join them do? Put pressure on the company by boycotting it? Sukaesih say no. Don’t do that! That’s going to harm her friends and former colleagues back home. Let them keep their jobs, but with much better pay and conditions, paid for by Nike. The company can afford it. There’s lots of Nike sweatshop activism taking place at this time. And the company does act. Or gives the impression that it’s acting. You decide.

Page reference:Alex Fanshawe, Lorian Douglas Dufresne, Frances Nicholson, Josh Perkins, Oscar Cator & Charlie Beere (2024) Cicih Sukaesih’s North America Nike tour. followthethings.com/cicih-sukaesihs-north-america-nike-tour.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 68 minutes.

Posted on September 16, 2024January 9, 2025 by Ian Cook

Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story

followthethings.com
Recycle my waste

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

“Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story“
A documentary film written by Jenny Rustemeyer Grant Baldwin, directed by Grant Baldwin for Silvapark Films.
Trailer and on-demand Vimeo stream embedded above. Search the internet for other streaming options here.

Most trade justice activism looks back down the supply chain from the point of consumption. It looks at all the materials, human and other lives bound up in commodities. It asks how they could be brought together in more sustainable, more ethical, ways. The sheer volume of resources inside even the most basic thing can be astonishing. Just as astonishing are the mountains of unsold commodities that go to waste. All those resources and all that work that went into making commodities that aren’t consumed! It’s shocking. So, filmmakers Jenny Rustemeyer and Grant Baldwin challenge themselves to live on thrown-away food for six months. They document how they get on with this experiment in a diary-like film. All the little details of their life, the decisions they make, are shared with the audience. People throw perfectly good food away at home, so maybe rummage through their bins. Then they discover the hidden world of supermarket dumpsters that contain discarded out-of-date food. They find and join local networks of dumpster-divers who specialise is finding, emptying, distributing and eating what’s in them. But what kind of diet do you end up living on when this is how you shop? How many lasagnes can you squeeze into your freezer? Do you fancy eating lasagne every day? Would you try this zero cost ethical food shopping? What can audiences learn about the food industry’s inevitable production of waste? They call on some experts to explain.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story (holding page). followthethings.com/just-eat-it-a-food-waste-story.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: tbc minutes.

Posted on August 19, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Trein Maersk: A Report To The NATOarts Board Of Directors

followthethings.com
Ship my order

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

LIE TO TELL THE TRUTH

“Trein Maersk: A Report To The NATOarts Board of Directors“
An electronic docupop album by Icebreaker International (Alexander Perls & Simon Break).
Free Spotify stream embedded above. Used vinyl & CD versions available on Discogs here.

NATO’s art division commissions electronic musicians Icebreaker International to create on board a container ship called the Trein Maersk as it travels between the ports of Yokohama in Japan to Halifax in Canada. NATO wants this to be a musical celebration of ‘free trade’. It’s a concept album that samples audio from its travels (including squawking seagulls) as well as ideological soundbites from champions of unregulated markets. Its tracks include ‘Port of Dubai’ and ‘The Third Way’ and they were written as the ship passed through these places, and as they reflected on these ideological arguments. The purpose of this work is educational. The CD booklet contains lots of information about world trade and a map of the ship’s journey. Online reviewers praise it as a masterpiece. This is a work of genius. Many are moved by the depth of feeling that this ‘electronic docupop’ has for the sea and for free trade. It’s the album Kraftwerk would have made if they weren’t so preoccupied with autobahns. So many of these reviews are so effusive in their praise that some think that something suspicious is happening here. Is this a genuine concept album or an elaborate prank? Does NATO even have an art division? Have these musicians ever travelled on a container ship? Are they really right wing musicians rebelling against activist representations of free trade? It could be true that that this music vividly evokes its logistics. Even if it does so sarcastically. Have a listen. See what you think. What role can a right wing (maybe) concept album play in trade justice activism? What can it do?

Page reference: Rachael Midlen (2013) Trein Maersk: A Report To The NATOarts Board of Directors. followthethings.com/treinmaersk.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 31 minutes.

Posted on August 11, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Pipe Trouble

followthethings.com
Home & Auto

END VIOLENCE & EXPLOITATION

JOIN THE DOTS

SHOW THE VIOLENCE

MAKE IT FAMILIAR

“Pipe Trouble“
A tablet video game by Alex Jansen in partnership with Jim Munrow for Pop Sandbox.
Gameplay video embedded above. No longer available from the iTunes Store

A documentary about laying gas pipelines across Canada is made for TV. To complement it, a computer game is commissioned. It’s based on the documentary’s research and the Pipe Mania game that came free with every copy of Windows 3.1. Your task? To lay a pipe from one side of the screen to the other. To keep your boss & local farmers happy. To make money. To get bombed by ‘ecoterrorists’. Critics said a video game that could be used to train eco-terrorists was sick. But had they played the game?

Page reference: Jenny Hart (2018) Pipe Trouble. http://followthethings.com/pipe-trouble.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 27 minutes.